


oh, it haunts me (tell me it haunts you too)

by melforbes



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: i am really bad at titles please ignore the title i am so sorry, melforbes is my name mom angst is my game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melforbes/pseuds/melforbes
Summary: Alternate episode 6 ending: Lyra stays the night with Mrs. Coulter
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 101





	oh, it haunts me (tell me it haunts you too)

**Author's Note:**

> i don't care if this is out-of-character i wrote most of it at two in the morning while being emotional about moms let's just all collectively let it be

She’d meant it when she said she was so happy to have found Lyra again. After such a long time spent telling lies, half-truths at best, deceptions toward herself and others, it was almost painful, then, to say that she wanted her daughter to stay, but with Lyra pain always seemed to be nearby, crouching in corners, waiting for the right moment to strike. And the tension between them hung like condensation on bathroom mirrors, Lyra’s bath taken in silence, Marisa taking too long to wash her daughter’s hair because that was what she’d missed most after losing Lyra, that and the breakfasts, sweet moments between them, unguarded moments, the closest thing either of them would experience to loving the other. With Pantalaimon turning away in the corner of the small bathroom - though she had sizable quarters given where they were, her quarters wouldn’t have been described as _sizable_ anywhere else - she felt she could ease through shampooing, could bring handfuls of water over the top of Lyra’s head, one good dip underwater as a final rinse. She held her breath while her daughter hovered beneath the soapy surface, then exhaled as Lyra crested above the water and breathed in again.

And when they went home together, she swore she wouldn’t force Lyra to wear stuffy dresses anymore. She swore she wouldn’t deny Lyra the trips to the park she requested - _somewhere green,_ her words - and would let her play with the other neighborhood children, no fear of gobblers anymore, maybe no fear of anything. Instead of sitting at an indoor desk, Lyra could study on the balcony, the two of them talking together, Lyra in play-clothes, books abandoned after lunchtime in favor of more important things. Marisa would take her daughter to see the rest of London, the botanic gardens and the beautiful old buildings, the magnificent churches where important people were married; then, she would take Lyra through the parks, seeing which of them could count all the daffodils before the other. And they would go home, and they would read a book together, and they would go to sleep in their separate little rooms, the farthest apart they would be all day being merely a hallway’s distance.

Once, Lyra had had a nightmare while living with Marisa, and though Marisa doubted that Lyra had ever done such a thing before, Lyra edged open Marisa’s bedroom door, said she was scared, asked to come in. And Marisa shouldn’t have found it endearing, no, Lyra was much too old for such things, and back then, she’d been Marisa’s _assistant,_ not daughter, but she sat up in bed and beckoned Lyra forward, letting Lyra nestle into Marisa’s bed and listen to Marisa’s stories of the north. By the time Lyra grew sleepy, Marisa almost wished she could carry Lyra back to bed but knew that was juvenile, so she nudged Lyra awake, told her it was time to go back to her own bed. They’d only slept in a bed once together, and though part of Marisa wanted desperately to make it twice, another part of her thought of that first day and said _no, this one I shall keep sacred._

But there was only one bed in Marisa’s quarters; this would be their second chance, mother and daughter, protector and protected, useless woman and screaming child. She tried not to think about how it would feel to sleep alongside a girl who at least somewhat hated her.

They dressed for the evening, Lyra in pajamas that Marisa had hauled all the way from London, just in case. As Lyra settled into bed, Marisa wanted to ask if there was something more they could do, a game maybe, one of the books she’d packed for the journey used as a bedtime story, but before she could ask, Lyra held her two arms out, fingers splayed, beckoning: _come hold me._ And Marisa’s chest tightened as she tugged back the blankets on the other side of the bed, as she pulled Lyra into her arms, as she cradled Lyra against her chest, the girl’s arms wrapping around her, little warm hands against impractical silk pajamas, and while Marisa stared blankly across the room, while Lyra nestled against her body, she knew that she wished to be a mother in the same way that Lyra wished to be a daughter: not at all, but maybe just a little bit. Maybe just a little bit. 

The first time she held Lyra, she’d been stuck in the bathtub of her own bedroom - her husband had stopped letting her into the master long before she started showing - and wondering if she would be stuck there until they both died. Later, she would learn that babies tended to come in the early hours of the morning, her daughter being no exception, but that night, that following morning, she’d felt the telltale pains of labor, the shame of the water breaking as if she were a child wetting the bed, and had been too nervous, too uncomfortable, to ask her husband to call for the doctor. She’d thought he would check in on her in the morning, find her in pain, and call then; later, she’d thought he would hear her screaming and call then; even later, she’d thought he would hear the baby cry and call then, but the bathroom door was left open, and if she looked in the direction of the door, she could see a view of the sunrise out of her long bedroom windows, and no one was coming to save her. No one was coming to save _them._

She hadn’t filled the tub, instead had been scared to ruin the mattress and thought, yes, this was a better place - and then she found that, once in the tub, she couldn’t manage a way out, and the panic rushed in. From her lack of preparation, she had nothing with which to cut the cord. Had her daemon not been agile and adept at reaching high places, she wouldn’t have been able to wrap Lyra in a towel to keep her little body warm. Her legs were bloody, her hair matted with sweat, and as she held the baby to her chest, she found her hands shaking, the fear, the resentment, the love. The love was the worst part, for it felt the best and would prove most fatal to them both, mother and daughter alike. With that love, she looked down at the baby, the cord taut over Marisa’s belly, the little body in her arms twitching with the effort it took to breathe, to cry, to move aching limbs and prove each one still worked, and wished that the doctor would never come, that not even Asriel would find them, for Marisa couldn’t trust them with her baby, couldn’t trust anyone. Though she knew that the Magisterium killed for their faith, she hadn’t until then understood such a conviction, and later, she would think that that conviction had been a strength of motherhood, and even later would believe it instead to be a weakness.

But it hadn’t felt weak as she clutched her crying baby to her chest, so alive, so vulnerable, an empty tub and a half-dark bathroom and a sunrise cresting over far-off windows. Instinct took over; bring the baby to the breast, she didn’t know why she needed to but felt her body and Lyra’s guide them that way together. And despite the pain, the uncomfortable delivery of the afterbirth, the blood between her legs and the aches throughout her body, she focused exclusively on the baby, the little girl taking her full attention, such small fingers, intricate eyelashes, a nose so little she didn’t understand how it could be real. And she loved Lyra immediately. She’d loved Lyra since the moment she was born. Though she hadn’t wanted to, she loved her daughter, and despite everything that had happened since her daughter’s birth, she still loved Lyra, so deeply that now it hurt to think about, so deeply that the memory of Lyra in the separator made her chest tighten with grief.

Once Asriel found her and brought her scissors, she cut the cord, and he was kind enough to tuck them both into bed, to keep watch while Marisa tried to rest, to keep their uncouth little family safe. Her husband must’ve left sometime in the late evening; for a blissful few hours, only the little girl’s parents would know that she existed at all, and though chaos would surely ensue once her husband found the baby, she curled up in bed and dared not think of that chaos. No, she thought of Asriel, thought of how he looked holding her little girl, thought of the gentle way he washed the baby in the sink and then wrapped her in the clothes Marisa had guided him to in one of her drawers, but nothing, not the way he smiled at their little girl, not the way he softened as he held the baby, would ever surpass how he came into her bedroom to find the bathroom door open, his love and their daughter left in the bathtub and staring out at the sunrise he now blocked, and fell to his knees, breathless. She would never forget that. She doubted she could forget that even if she wanted to.

In the back of one of her drawers, she still kept some of Lyra’s little clothes, the ones she’d never had a chance to dress her daughter in. The right halfway point, useless clothes, clothes meant for a child that never exactly was, she could keep those and not feel the weight of loss, not feel as if she were still a mother. And sometimes she would stay awake into the small hours of the morning, agonizing over how her daughter was so close by, just in Oxford, barely a trip away, yet she couldn’t see her daughter, not then and perhaps not ever. Though she didn’t want to be a mother, she wanted to see her daughter, maybe even just once more. That bartering would keep her up late, and come morning, she would force the thoughts down, trying to forget. Instead of parenthood, instead of a life of love, she’d chosen what she now had, high rank in the Magisterium and a polished home without a trace of restlessness or unrule, and she was happy with what she’d chosen. She was glad that her life’s work had taken her in this direction. But she still wondered if she could sneak away for a day, shirk her duties, wear clothes no one would recognize, and edge up to Jordan College, peeking in through a window, trying to find a little girl with her own looks. She still wondered if Lyra would be okay.

And now, her daughter was okay. Her daughter was tucked in alongside her, Pantalaimon sleeping on Lyra’s pillow, small, warm bodies occupying almost no space at all. And Marisa couldn’t sleep, for her mind was simultaneously blank and too full, her thoughts empty but weighted, her heartbeat too quick and her nerves still on-edge. She’d let this girl go too many times before, and now, she was determined to be her mother. _But you don’t know how to be a mother,_ a voice in the back of her mind said, and though she wished she knew how, she understood with deep conviction that she hadn’t the slightest idea of how a good mother would behave. The chamomile, that she could supply from her own upbringing, but everything else - the distance, the distaste, the violence - she knew was not proper to pass on. Already, she’d made mistakes, so she couldn’t make any more, not now, not ever, for Lyra was hers, and she couldn’t let the girl go, couldn’t try to unlove her instead. No, she needed to be a mother to this girl, and though this girl had had few other options for mother figures, though a college of male scholars had hardly filled such a position, she also knew that she needed to be a proper mother to this girl, not just a present one, not just a biological one. 

And she would do it all if she could, would teach Lyra her lessons and would take Lyra to the park and would do their favorite pastime together, sit in a cafe and make up elaborate stories about the other patrons, how this woman in the big hat was an heiress from America, how that man was a spy searching for secrets from the north. While they sat together, Lyra would have a hot chocolate, Marisa a latte, and they would share little pastries and giggle to themselves, this woman is a queen of a long-lost civilization and therefore not a queen at all, that man’s daemon stole seven rubies from a jeweler and hid them in her dark panther fur. She would find Lyra friends, friends of her own age, friends who liked to run around and play and make up games and race - though the rooftops would be expressly forbidden, she thought that was a rule a good mother would have. When they went shopping for clothes, she would find Lyra dresses with give in the sleeves, skirts that wouldn’t rip or tear, and though she would sprinkle in the occasional pretty frock - she liked clothes, after all - she would save those for parties, not everyday wear. And she would teach Lyra everything she wanted to know about the north, not just what Lyra’s lessons required; she would take Lyra to the north, not to this place but to other places, the beautiful villages, the ice-capped mountains, the long and shockingly grassy plains, maybe even - and the thought brought tears to her eyes - the northern lights, the beautiful northern lights, the lights Asriel wished to study, the lights he told her about while he stroked her hair in bed so many years ago - stolen moments, stolen nights, her husband was out of town, she could escape for the evening - and insisted that they eventually would see them together, two fur coats, two pairs of hardy winter boots, his mittens doubled over hers because his hands were always too warm and hers too cold. 

When she woke, shivering in her inadequate pajamas, she found her bed empty, Lyra’s side unmade, so she tensed, forced herself up, pushed past her daemon as she looked in the bathroom, then the closet, and crumpled on the closet floor were Lyra’s pajamas, the ones Marisa had taken all the way from London to here, the ones she had imagined her daughter curling up in since the moment the spy fly returned. Picking up the clothes, she ran her thumbs over the soft material, her mind blank as she brought the clothes to her face, breathed in the scent of shampoo, soap, warmth, her daughter, her Lyra. 

And then, the fire alarm sounded.


End file.
